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Book Shopping In London

A few weeks ago now i took another trip to London. I absolutely love the city and being from Manchester myself, it’s not too much different. Just a whole lot bigger. I wrote a post about my time at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour (again) that you can read HERE if you want to know what else i got up to while in the capital. However, i also wanted to talk about my favourite thing to do in London. Book shop!

There is one particular shop that i always make sure i go in to while im in London, and that is Foyles. I wrote a post all about my first experience in Foyles a few years ago now, and i’ve made a trip there numerous times since.

If you didn’t know, Foyles is a very commercial bookshop that has a very wide selection of books. They sell everything from German YA to music sheets, children’s graphic novels to classics and everything in between. They have so much choice under one roof that it’s very difficult not to spend a lot of time in there and come away adoring the store.

I always like to make sure i get a decent look around and spend about an hour in there. It’s not the cheapest of book shops, but they have enough to satisfy any book needs.

Their YA section has always been the best i’ve encountered, and more-so this trip i realised that their YA section was much better than i ever imagined it to be. First of all, it’s huge for just a collection of YA books. A good twenty shelves of all the Young Adult you can imagine. I an definitely in my element looking around there.

The one thing i never really noticed was the YA hardback section. Throughout the shelves there is quite a lot of American copies of novels. This for a person who loves the American standard editions of their paperbacks is my heaven. On this trip i had a look at the hardback section and realised there was in fact a lot of new release American copies of novels, ones that i hadn’t expected to see in the U.K on shelves for months yet. I was absolutely amazed.

I spent a lot time picking out what i wanted to buy and ended up with a basket full of books that i had to very strictly narrow down to two. I chose to keep Slasher Girls and Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tucholke, which i’ve had my eye on for a very long time each time i go in to Foyles. It’s difficult to find in store in the U.K so i figured i may as well buy it this time. I also picked up a copy of American Street by Ibi Zoboi which has started to become popular in the bookish community in the last few months. Again, it’s a really difficult book to get hold of, so hard to pick it up!

As soon as YALC has finished i will be picking up these two books. I cannot wait to start American Street as i’ve heard only amazing things from the author.

I really adore having a browse around a book shop that isn’t a Waterstones, that’s all we seem to have in the North of England. My trips to London truly made by my few hours spent in Foyles. If you have never been and you have a trip to London planned, make sure you spend a little time browsing shelves in Foyles and pop up to the top floor for a coffee and cake! An afternoon well spent.

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One thought on “Book Shopping In London”

That’s really interesting that copies of the same book can be so different depending on where they’re printed. I’m from the U.S. and I guess I didn’t realize that they could be printed so differently. Hopefully someday I can have the experience of going to a bookstore in Europe – sounds amazing! Thanks for sharing 🙂